A little more than a year ago, we wrote about an Australian hobbyist named Bruce Dell who was claiming--with video evidence to back it up--that he’d
created a new graphics technology that could deliver unlimited power. That is, rather than working with a limited number of polygon shapes
(restricted, of course, by computing power), a graphic environment could be built from an infinite number of 3-D virtual atoms, much like the physical
world. It was a cool idea. Then Dell and his Unlimited Detail graphics system disappeared.
___
Dell describes in perfect exhilarated-Aussie just how awesome this technology could make our video game worlds and other virtual environments.
Unlimited Detail can now pack one million atoms into a single virtual cubic inch, allowing for unprecedented detail. And it could make such
environments less virtual, allowing game designers to “scan” in objects from the real world and present them as they look naturally, making video
game worlds a kind of hybrid reality with some parts real and some parts engineered by artists.

ok, basically:
They made little game atoms...the atoms assemble based on perspective, and you can zoom in pretty much infinately, this allows for the most realistic
graphics short of...reality.
Every blade of grass will be a "physical" object...every grain of sand will be its own geometry sand particle...

You can scan in things and it will look exactly like what you scanned in with no poly count consideration...it runs on even a weak computer and makes
all things smooth and breathtaking...not to mention the ability to use the new infinate geometry in practical environmental settings (dust storm is
literal bits of sand picked up randomly from the scene, could even to proper destruction.

Once this is released, video (be it games or CG videos) will be pretty indistinguishable between reality and fiction.

I'm fairly techno-illiterate when it comes to the concept of graphics. However this sounds really cool, so thank you very much for sharing. I am
reading the article now and will watch the video later, as I am at work at the moment. From what you've indicated it sounds like video games, and
hopefully other applications, are about to get completely revolutionized.

Said there will be two distinct catagories now
one will be scans of reality (plants, grass, animals, people, etc)...this can be done by anyone, so artists will then focus on making fictional
representations verses trying to make that perfect flower sort of thing (hard to create better than mother nature sort of thing).

So, in that respect, it may serve as a considerable blow to CG artists whom make a living doing common stuff (building chairs, rocks, etc...organic
non-fiction stuff)...however, it forces them into a mostly creative role, and when your paycheck now depends on how imaginative you are, that can have
some very positive results).

Of course the "atom" approach is obvious. Nothing more than a much smaller polygon. At any rate, wouldn't the real technological breakthrough be the
hardware/ software needed to render these objects? Seems to me that it would take a massive amount of processing power to be able to do this.

ETA: I don't know what the freak-out about scanning is all about. We've been doing this for a long time now. The technology is readily
available.

edit on 2-8-2011 by SpringHeeledJack because: (no reason given)

ETA2: I see. Popular Science would be a reputable source in my mind. Seems to me your snippet cut off at an inopportune time, leaving me with a false
impression. I suggest editing it to remove that last sentence or adding a little more content. Cool stuff

Originally posted by countduckula24
I'm fairly techno-illiterate when it comes to the concept of graphics. However this sounds really cool, so thank you very much for sharing. I am
reading the article now and will watch the video later, as I am at work at the moment. From what you've indicated it sounds like video games, and
hopefully other applications, are about to get completely revolutionized.

Oh good, now my parents are gonna wonder why I won't stop drooling.
That, I must say, is awesome. There are a couple things like this that I've always wondered why people don't think of them...things that I think would
make our computing and computer generated imagery much more efficient, not to mention effective. I'm sure the polygon approach was a necessary evil,
but really, we should never have stuck with it as long as we have.
This idea, of building virtual environments, objects, and characters from individual virtual atoms is, as far as I'm concerned, about as epic a win as
is possible with current CG technology. So, yeah...

Realistic destruction is still a no go. Also, it doesn't run on weak computers... he gets a pretty low frame rate on the computer he is demoing it
on... and even says the frame rate is still pretty rough and that they have advanced versions that have better lighting models that weren't ready to
show yet because they aren't finished and also have low frame rates.....

Realistic destruction is a no go because there would still have to be a separate physics engine. Remember these different "game atoms" need to have
different physical properties to them like real atoms. I.E. A wooden table would be made up of millions of atoms... in which, when they fuse they
need to act like wood. That means the cpu would have to track the physical interaction between millions of digital atomic particles vs a couple
hundred polygons which are then grouped into a low amount of "hitboxes" which in props can be as low as 1...

In reality, rag doll physics will be about the same, but destruction is going to end up being harder to do if attempting to do it off of any modern
physics engine of today and trying to scale it to millions and billions of atoms. These guys didn't make an unlimited detail physics engine to go
with it... In the end, the physics will be identical to now... they will have atoms grouped into hit boxes and do canned animations out of the atoms
like normal physics now.

Ya dig? Clipping is fundamentally a different problem separate from rendering techniques. This isn't going to help cgi either... At all. Every art
asset in the engine that runs on atoms is still built in polygons... The engine converts it to atoms.

They would need to make a different renderer for suites like maya and 3dsmax that converts all assets upon completion into atoms before animation in
order for that to improve CGI. It probably still won't help CGI too much anyhow... since this has nothing to do with texture constraints. All it
would do is marginally speed up the render time. Something that used to take 5 weeks to render might only take 2 now.... This would largely depend
on the efficiency of the version built for the suites though.....

Originally posted by SpringHeeledJack
wouldn't the real technological breakthrough be the hardware/ software needed to render these objects? Seems to me that it would take a massive
amount of processing power to be able to do this.

Unlimited Detail circumvents the computing power problem, Dell says, by acting like a search engine that figures out, in real time, which points need
to be rendered to create a certain view from a certain perspective. So only the “atoms” that are being viewed in a given frame from a certain
perspective are actually rendered at any given time. The rest go un-rendered in the background. Less rendering means less computing power
consumed.

In the video they used, they had a 1K island squared packed with this, from grass, to sand, trees, etc.
They said they were running at 20FPS, however, powerful machines do much better.

So, ya...the way its rendered on perception through "cloud" rendering seems to absorb any problems with rendering cost.

The difference between the old scan method and now is that, if you scanned a rock normally, it would take up waaaay too many polygons to be useful
beyond just a model in itself...this allows for every single nook and cranny to be useful without any polygon limitation...

Watch the video, its pretty informative actually and tends to answer all the questions that are raised...its pretty special stuff.

That is fantastic. Maybe Left 4 Dead 7 (which might coincide with the implementation of this technology) will be able to prepare me for the actual
Zombie Apocalypse because of it's graphically realism.

Wow that is awesome technology! It's really cool to see that they are working on it, but from a technology point of view, now they will provide their
technology to game designers so that they can really toy around with it and get the most out of it for the purposes of video games.

A little more than a year ago, we wrote about an Australian hobbyist named Bruce Dell who was claiming--with video evidence to back it up--that he’d
created a new graphics technology that could deliver unlimited power. That is, rather than working with a limited number of polygon shapes
(restricted, of course, by computing power), a graphic environment could be built from an infinite number of 3-D virtual atoms, much like the physical
world. It was a cool idea. Then Dell and his Unlimited Detail graphics system disappeared.
___
Dell describes in perfect exhilarated-Aussie just how awesome this technology could make our video game worlds and other virtual environments.
Unlimited Detail can now pack one million atoms into a single virtual cubic inch, allowing for unprecedented detail. And it could make such
environments less virtual, allowing game designers to “scan” in objects from the real world and present them as they look naturally, making video
game worlds a kind of hybrid reality with some parts real and some parts engineered by artists.

ok, basically:
They made little game atoms...the atoms assemble based on perspective, and you can zoom in pretty much infinately, this allows for the most realistic
graphics short of...reality.
Every blade of grass will be a "physical" object...every grain of sand will be its own geometry sand particle...

You can scan in things and it will look exactly like what you scanned in with no poly count consideration...it runs on even a weak computer and makes
all things smooth and breathtaking...not to mention the ability to use the new infinate geometry in practical environmental settings (dust storm is
literal bits of sand picked up randomly from the scene, could even to proper destruction.

Once this is released, video (be it games or CG videos) will be pretty indistinguishable between reality and fiction.

And now watch the video...

Star/Flag. My son showed me this last night and blew me away. So if I understand you get to go atomic in detail without the accompanying data load?

Interesting comment in the video " keep in mind we're a technology company and not a gaming company". They are novice at CGI and look at that
rendering. This should also be huge for 3D no?

Well, first off, the crytek engine is doing a pretty good job overall in realistic destruction...granted, they are working with big chunks, but the
concept could still be the same.
What will be needed overall is a workover to incorporate linking between the "atoms" so that things don't turn into atomic dust when they explode
due to poor linking, however, just considering it, I think a sort of electrogravitic force based on connection could be implemented...

Basically, look at nature to program the new algorithms on how things break...the chunk break is all old school now once this is released.

I have a bit of understanding about physics engines (minimal, but enough to talk stupidly about em), so I know, especially the new engines, that they
are flexible enough to allow for variable differences...

I know this is comparing apples to airplanes, but, "chunk" destruction can be programmed down or up dependingly...a few rewrites and you may be
close to the desired effect

And keep in mind, even the polyatom is still under development and being refined.
Pity we don't know the specs of the computer he was using, he said more powerful computers run it much better, however, he doesn't say what he is
using.

This looks to be nothing more than a reincarnation of the voxel idea, which (for those of you who have been coding long enough) remember preceded
polygonal modeling. It is a very cool idea, dont get me wrong, but those of us who have been doing this a while already knew that voxels would
overtake polygons eventually, the hardware just had to catch up.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.